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CTE in Blast-Exposed Combat Veterans and Football Players, and a New Blast Neurotrauma Mouse Model

Start Date:

10/26/2012

Start Time:

4:00 PM

End Date:

10/26/2012

End Time:

5:30 PM

Event DescriptionDr. Lee E. Goldstein, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Ophthalmology, Neurology, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Boston University School of Medicine, College of Engineering and the Photonics Center, will discuss how traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting from exposure to explosive blast is the “signature” injury of the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blast TBI has been reported to affect ~20% of the 2.4 million servicemen and women deployed to these conflict zones. Clinical features of blast TBI include persistent neuropsychiatric symptoms, cognitive disability, and neurological sequelae that overlap with signs and symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive tau protein-linked neurodegenerative disorder associated with repetitive concussion in athletes (McKee AC, et al., 2009, 2010). This talk will present new discoveries that link blast exposure to TBI and CTE in U.S. military veterans and in a new blast neurotrauma mouse model. The talk will summarize recently published results (Goldstein LE, et al., 2012) of a three-year research effort conducted by a national team of experts in neuropathology, neurodegenerative disease pathobiology, neurophysiology and behavioral neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and blast physics. More about Dr. Goldstein's work can be viewed in a summary of the article entitled "Boston University and VA Study Shows Same Brain Disease in Veterans and Football Players" at the following link:
http://www.biomed.drexel.edu/new04/Content/news_events/ExecSummary.pdf